This past week I was able to attend a webinar on graphic novels and reading. It was presented by Booklist.

I grew up in an household with a man who loved comics, my dad was a serious comic collector and whenever there wasn’t a chance for me to get to my local library he would let me read a few of them. I am one of the biggest advocate for graphic novels and comics used for reading materials. I’ve started my own little collection of graphic novels. I was really excited to get to participate in this webinar and I thought it would be interesting in light of the diversity research I was hoping to do.

One of the panelist was Françoise Mouly, who is the wife of the writer/artist of the great graphic novel Maus, Art Spiegelman. I first read Maus in one of my European history classes and it affected me so much, more than any other book about the holocaust. It really is a must read. She herself is one of the founders of a program called Toon Books – Toon into Reading. The goal of the program is to create a bridge to literacy from kindergarten to 3rd grade; from picture books to chapter books. The website can be found here.

Roger Rosen, the creator of Rosen Publishing was there to talk about their new lines of non-fiction graphic novels: Rosen Graphica. Many of their titles are based on the curriculum and have won awards.